How Did We Get The Bible (part 1)

This topic is so vital and yet a monster to unpack comprehensively and accurately. For a number of weeks, I will unpack this question, "How did we get the Bible"? 

I know for most readers this is new information and these posts will be very technical at times. But I am confident that if you take your time, allowing time to digest these posts, it will ultimately increase your confidence in the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible. 

Enjoy and feel free to share! 

***The below post was taken from a variety of online and literary sources. A minimal amount of this data is original to the author of this blog post. 

What does “Canon” mean?

The word canon isn’t found in the Bible, but the root word occurs in 1 Kings 14:15 and Job 40:21. Originally qāneh meant a “reed” or “stalk” of papyrus, oil-grass, or sweet cane. Since reeds were used as measuring rods or ruling sticks for making straight lines, “canon” came to mean “measure” or “measuring reed.”

The term canon was first used as a theological expression in reference to the Holy Scriptures by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in his Easter letter to the churches in which he outlined the contents of the New Testament canon (around AD 367).

When applied to the Hebrew Scriptures, “canon” implies that the individual books of the Old Testament were believed to have been divinely inspired and recognized as “word of God.” The canon was a collection of books of Scripture deemed supremely authoritative for faith and religious practice by the Hebrew community, and became the standard by which later books of Hebrew history, tradition, and religious teaching were evaluated.

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Four Stages of the development of the Canon

Stage 1: “Authoritative utterances.”

In most cases, God’s revelation to the Hebrew people (and others) was initially conveyed orally. (Note the messenger formulas along the line of “this is what the Sovereign Lord says,” and “hear the word of the Lord” in the Old Testament, such as in Isaiah 1:10 and Ezekiel 5:5.) These authoritative utterances were then passed to succeeding generations as the “word of the Lord” in the form of received oral tradition. 

Stage 2: Formal written documents.

At some point these divinely inspired words, sayings, and speeches were recorded and preserved for the Hebrew community in written form. 

The first time we see this is in the Book of Deuteronomy. 

“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ (Deut. 10:1-2)

When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, “Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you. (Deut. 31:24-26)

Not only did the Lord raise up a group of people known as the prophets to speak to Israel, He also gave them an unbroken succession of prophets. In fact, one of the most important evidences, in determining the extent of the Old Testament canon, is the recognition of this continuous succession of prophets. As we look at the Scripture, we find that from the time of Samuel, until the time of the Babylonian captivity there was a continuous chain of prophets that appeared to the people.

We can illustrate this as follows. Scripture says the seer, or prophet, Samuel, wrote down the events of King David. 

Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the records of the seer Samuel, and in the records of the prophet Nathan, and in the records of the seer Gad. (1 Chronicles 29:29)

The records of Solomon, the King who followed his father David, were recorded by the prophet Nathan as well as the prophet Ahijah. We are told that the prophet Iddo wrote about Jeroboam. 

Everything else Solomon did while he was king is written in the records of Nathan the prophet, Ahijah the prophet from Shiloh, and Iddo the prophet who wrote about Jeroboam son of Nebat. (2 Chronicles 9:29)

In another instance, we have Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer recording the events of the reign of Rehoboam, the king who followed Solomon. 

As for the events of Rehoboam’s reign, from beginning to end, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer that deal with genealogies? There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. (2 Chronicles 12:15)

We also read in the Book of Chronicles about the events of King Jehoshaphat being recorded by Jehu; who was also a prophet. The Bible says:

The rest of the events of Jehoshaphat’s reign, from beginning to end, are recorded in The Record of Jehu, son of Hanani, which is included in The Book of the Kings of Israel. (2 Chronicles 20:34) 

The acts of King Hezekiah were also faithfully recorded by Isaiah the prophet. We read the Bible saying:

Everything else Hezekiah did while he was king, including how faithful he was to the Lord, is included in the records kept by Isaiah the prophet. These are written in The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel. (2 Chronicles 32:32)

There is also the example of the deeds of King Manasseh having been recorded by God’s prophets. Scripture says:

Everything else Manasseh did while he was king, including his prayer to the Lord God and the warnings from his prophets, is written in The History of the Kings of Israel. ( 2 Chronicles 33:19-21)

These references illustrate the unbroken chain of prophets from before the first king in Israel until the time of the Babylonian captivity. Each writing prophet was succeeded by another. There were also prophets that were sent to the people before this period as well as after this period. This would guarantee that the people had continuous spokesmen from the Lord during the entire period in which the Old Testament was written.

Sometimes the Prophets wrote down their own messages

These prophets, whom the Lord sent, would orally proclaim His message to the people. At times, they recorded their God-given messages. Apart from the writings of Moses, sixteen of the books of the Old Testament were composed by these writing prophets. Each of these writing prophets has a book that bears their name. This includes the Twelve Minor prophets as well as the four Major Prophets; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

At times, the messages of the Prophets were recorded by others

Not only did the sixteen writing prophets record their messages, at times the words which certain other prophets spoke were recorded by others. For example, the prophetic words of Elijah and Elisha are recorded in the Book of Kings. However, there is no indication that they themselves wrote the words attributed to them.

These sacred writings were immediately collected and treated as divine. 

These writings that were considered sacred were immediately collected by the people and treated as Holy Scripture. This process continued from the time of Moses until the end of the Old Testament period. 

Here is the clearest example in the Bible: 

We read the following words from the prophet Daniel:

During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, was studying the writings of the prophets. I learned from the word of the LORD, as recorded by Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years. (Daniel 9:2)

Jeremiah’s work, written some seventy-five years before Daniel, was already considered to be sacred Scripture at the time of Daniel. This again tells us that the writings of the divinely inspired prophets were immediately recognized by the people as Holy Scripture; it was not centuries after the fact.

Stage 3: Collecting written documents

A millennium of Hebrew history is recorded in the Old Testament, which indicates the canoniation process likely took a long time. (For example, it’s apparent that the Psalms alone came together over a period of five hundred years!) It’s also believed that these texts were rather comprehensive. Numerous ancient sources cited in the Old Testament remain unknown to modern scholarship (such as the Book of the Wars of the Lord, referenced in Numbers 21:14, and the Book of Jashar, referenced in Joshua 10:13).

Assembling the written records of the Hebrew experience with Yahweh into anthologies and books was partially a matter of convenience for the Israelite community, since it permitted easy access to documents and ensured their continued preservation. More importantly though, it signified the value, prominence, and authority of the writings collected for the religious life of the community. These books demanded special attention. For example, we read in the Book of Nehemiah:

“Day by day, from the first day of the festival to the last day, Ezra continued to read from the Book of God’s Teachings. The people celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day, they had a closing festival assembly in accordance with the regulations. When the Israelites assembled on the twenty-fourth day of this month, they fasted, wore sackcloth, and threw dirt on their heads. Those who were descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood and confessed their sins as well as the wicked things their ancestors had done. They stood in their places, and for one-fourth of the day, [they listened as] the Book of the Teachings of the LORD their God was read, and for another fourth [of the day], they confessed their sins and worshiped the LORD their God.” (Nehemiah 8:18; 9:1-3)

Stage 4: Sorting written documents and fixing a canon

We don’t know the details of how ancient Hebrews sorted through documents, but we can discern the basic criteria they applied to these documents for the purpose of “sorting” and delineating canon. Over the course of Israelite history, the Holy Spirit guided Hebrew religious leaders to make consensus choices, which eventually resulted in a Hebrew canon of Scripture.

The Hebrews apparently had a “fixed” (or established) canon of Scripture well before the time of Jesus Christ. The prologue to the Apocryphal Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, refers to a threefold collection of “great teaching” including the Law, the Prophets, and the Other Books of Our Fathers (around 200 BC). Nothing could be added or subtracted to this list. At the time of the Maccabees, about 164 B.C., there was the recognition that it had been a long time since the people had an authoritative word from God.

We read the following in the Book of First Maccabees:

After the death of Judas, the renegades emerged in all parts of Israel; all the wrongdoers reappeared. In those days a very great famine occurred, and the country went over to their side. Bacchides chose the godless and put them in charge of the country. They made inquiry and searched for the friends of Judas, and brought them to Bacchides, who took vengeance on them and made sport of them. So there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them. (1 Maccabees 9:23-27)

Finally, Jesus himself appealed to a threefold Hebrew canon consisting of the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44).

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But how were the canonical books agreed upon? This is a crucial issue. 

I understand that the below information is primarily referring to the New Testament documents. Yet, in some sense, you could replace the word "church" with "the people of God" which would also apply to the recognition of the Old Testament canon.

The Authority Relationship Between Church and Canon

Incorrect View  The church is determiner of the canon.    The church is mother of the canon. The church is magistrate of the canon. The church is regulator of the canon. The church is judge of the canon. The          church is the master of the canon.

Correct View  The church is discoverer of the canon. The church is child of the canon. The church is minister of the canon. The church is recognizer of the canon. The church is witness of the canon. The church is the servant of the canon.

In the incorrect view, the authority of the Scriptures is based upon the authority of the church; the correct view is that the authority of the church is to be found in the authority of the Scriptures. The incorrect view places the church over the canon, whereas the proper position views the church under the canon. In fact, if in the column titled "Incorrect View,” the word church be replaced by God, then the proper view of the canon emerges clearly. It is God who regulated the canon; man merely recognized the divine authority God gave to it. God determined the canon, and man discovered it.

Louis Gaussen gives an excellent summary of this position:

“In this affair, then, the Church is a servant and not a mistress; a depository and not a judge. She exercises the office of a minister not of a magistrate. She delivers a testimony, not a judicial sentence. She discerns the canon of the Scriptures, she does not make it; she has recognized their authenticity, she has not given it. The authority of the Scriptures is not founded, then, on the authority of the Church: It is the church that is founded on the authority of the Scriptures.”

Geisler and Nix are very helpful with this issue. The excerpt below is taken from their work, “A General Introduction to the Bible”.

We can ask these questions of the biblical texts given to us: 

Is it prophetic? 

Was the book written by a prophet of God? Were the authors Apostles or Prophets? God put His words in the mouths of the prophets and they declared what God had revealed to them. Therefore, books written by a prophet were immediately accepted.

Is it miraculous? 

Was the writer given God’s affirmation through signs, fulfillment of prophecy, or comparison to other truth revealed up to that point? 

Is it authentic? 

Does the message speak the truth about God?

Is it dynamic? 

Does it manifest the power of God? The word of God is able to accomplish its stated purpose.

Is it received? 

Was it accepted by the people of God?

 

Conclusion 

Many of you will have questions. Don't be shy to ask, but let's do it by email. 

Email: clint@auberry.church 

Have a great week!